"Freedom" thread or something

dtguitarfan wrote: JJLehto wrote: As for protecting people and regulating corporations, 100% yes to the first part, it depends to the second. Im ok with regulation, but it depends where and what exactly we're talking about. There are certainly arguments to be made about regulating finance and all. Esp since we cant give up bailing them out now we kinda need to regulate them to make sure it doesnt happen again. At the very heart of things, I think my end goal is the same as everyone's here - and that would be that all men be equal (this word might seem horrendous to some - don't assume you know exactly what I mean by it, either).  What we disagree on is how to get there.  I believe that we need government to protect people and regulate corporations.  The reason I believe this is because people are not currently equal, and there is a thing called "group think".  When you have a group of people who are set up "over" other people, and they are treating those other people in a way that is oppressive, there may be people that are part of the "over" group who do not agree with this but do nothing because of group think.  They don't want to upset the status quo, they don't want to lose their job, they're comfortable where they are, etc.  So the trick is: how do you solve this situation?  How to we get to the point where we can eliminate the oppressive situations and end up with all men as equal?  In our current state of unbalance, we need some entity to come in and protect the weak from the strong.  Tied up in all this, to complicate this, is the idea that we're stronger when we work together.  We have amazing things in this day and age ONLY because we've worked together.  Take computer technology, for instance.  I am a computer programmer.  I'm pretty good at it, I think.  But let's say, just for the sake of argument, that one day all the people who knew how to assemble computer chips and other parts like that went extinct.  You think I could keep computer technology going forever?  No.  Eventually, the machinery that creates computer chips and other parts would stop working because I don't know enough about its maintenance.  And then, once all the computers that are currently out there stopped working, there would be no more computers for me to do my computer programming on and I'd be out of a job, because I have no idea how to build a computer from scratch.  So no more computers.  That is, if I wasn't teaming up with people who knew how to put together computers from scratch.  Likewise, if one day all the computer programmers went extinct, I'd imagine the people who build computers might have some problems on their hands that they wouldn't be able to solve.  So the answer, I think, is not rugged individualism, either.  Rugged individualism will bring us back to caveman days eventually.  Sure, we'll have our roads and technology for a while.  But after a while, if we don't work together, roads will cease to be and without people coming together to build technology we'll forget how to do that as well.  So the question is, how can we maintain a society where computer programmers and technicians (we'll use that word for "the people who do physical stuff with computers" as a very broad terminology) can work together as equals without one group asserting itself as being oppressively "over" the other, so that we can enjoy the wonders of technology and still have equality?  That's what the entire debate of political policy is about, at its very most basic level, I think.  The complication is that you don't just have ONE group who is oppressively over another.  You have many groups that are oppressively over many other groups, and in some cases oppressive groups have made agreements with other oppressive groups.  So the question is how to upset the balance in the favor of those who are "under" in order to bring us back to the possibility of equality?

Edited by JJLehto - August 22 2013 at 14:22

Dudemanguy wrote: How? Monsanto is utterly and entirely dependent on IP. Scrapping IP protection always opens up new markets.

Here's the problem with that premise - you don't WANT more markets for the sort of thing Monsanto is doing.  You want to stop (or at least minimize to the extreme) the sort of thing that Monsanto is doing, because it is harmful.  So how do you go about doing that?  If a case can be made that Monsanto is basically selling a very slow working poison, how to you stop this practice?  Scrapping the IP Protection so that more companies can sell this slow working poison at an even cheaper price doesn't help at all - it has the opposite effect.

Dudemanguy wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Here's the problem with that premise - you don't WANT more markets for the sort of thing Monsanto is doing.  You want to stop (or at least minimize to the extreme) the sort of thing that Monsanto is doing, because it is harmful.  So how do you go about doing that?  If a case can be made that Monsanto is basically selling a very slow working poison, how to you stop this practice?  Scrapping the IP Protection so that more companies can sell this slow working poison at an even cheaper price doesn't help at all - it has the opposite effect. Could I get a citation on the slow-working poison thing? I simply meant opening up the agriculture market so more companies can come in. There's no need for everyone to sell the exact same thing as Monsanto. You could theoretically modify the genome as you like without IP law. And plus, organic and local farming is always a thing and would certainly rise more. If these products are a slow working poison, then without government protection, these things can get more easily publicized and will go away.

Edited by JJLehto - August 22 2013 at 14:48

Dudemanguy wrote: JJLehto wrote: But I just dont know, what is Monsanto? What do they do and any sources about their product being harmful? I thought they made gen modified food? Is that stuff in itself bad for you? Do they just put sh*t into their product that harms us? Monsanto genetically modifies food, yeah. So anyone who grows their stuff (whether they knew it or not) has to pay the proper royalties in order not to face legal potentialities. As far as I'm aware, there's no real advantage to eating organic food (but it does taste a lot better usually) as opposed to genetically modified ones. The poison-thing seems pretty much like the fluoride-in-the-water thing. Not something I'd really take seriously. Besides, Monsanto has very little reason to poison us, the longer we live, the longer we'll end up buying their products.

Though I guess why it'd be a slow killing  Like ciggs

Edited by JJLehto - August 22 2013 at 14:57

^To expand on that, for the sake of the hypothetical situation, you have to assume that it took us a hundred years to figure out that Monsanto's practices are causing cancer.  And during that hundred years or so, because of the fact that it was insanely cheap to make genetically modified food available, natural food became more and more expensive and hard to get.  So now we have a situation where the rich don't care about doing anything about Monsanto because they are making money off of them and are able to afford natural food, and the poor are dying off from cancer.  But only after they've spent a number of years putting money in the pockets of the rich, which is all the rich really care about.

JJLehto wrote: We could not support them. Not buy anything Monsanto.

But here's the problem - in the hypothetical situation I'm setting up, what has happened over time is that the practice of growing GMO's has become very cheap and very widely practiced, and the cost of natural food has gone up.  So "not supporting them" and "not buying anything Monsanto" has become difficult for people who don't have lots of disposable income.  Now, you might argue "but this situation only arose because of intellectual property laws."  Fine.  IP Law sucks.  You're right.  But how do we fix our current situation?  You get rid of the IP Law now, and all you'll have is MORE GMO's, after all these other companies start taking advantage of the situation.

See, as we're getting into this "hypothetical" Monsanto situation, I'm simultaneously demonstrating why I got so fed up with talking with some of the people on this thread - in order to have this discussion, you have to give me my assumptions.  I'm trying to demonstrate a scenario that would be difficult for someone with a strictly "no government/free market" idealism to solve.  But most people who are that idealistic with their views just circumvent the whole conversation by saying "everything you're saying is false - Monsanto doesn't really do that" or some such thing, in order to skip over the whole argument and make it easier on themselves.  And so you can't ever have a real conversation with them on policy because any situation that might challenge their viewpoint is ruled "not real" by them.  Anything that might challenge them is decided to be a story that was cooked up by the "liberal media" or some such nonsense.  "There is no reality except the one I decide fits my idealism best."  So then you try to point out that the "free market" idea they love so much doesn't really exist anywhere in reality either.  And this doesn't phase them one bit.  They just say "that's because no one's ever tried it."  And you go round and round in circles trying to have a real conversation with them, and finally get fed up and say "Libertarians all suck!"  And you degrade into name calling and such.  And then someone reasonable comes along and picks sides against you and calls you the one who is unreasonable.  But it takes you a while to realize that this new entry into the conversation is actually reasonable.

dtguitarfan wrote: See, as we're getting into this "hypothetical" Monsanto situation, I'm simultaneously demonstrating why I got so fed up with talking with some of the people on this thread - in order to have this discussion, you have to give me my assumptions.  I

Why?  You don't grant the Libertarian his.  While I have offered you specific and sourced refutations, your responses consist of sweeping generalizations ("And so you can't ever have a real conversation with them on policy because any situation that might challenge their viewpoint is ruled "not real" by them.  Anything that might challenge them is decided to be a story that was cooked up by the "liberal media" or some such nonsense. "), bizarre analogies ("I have a straight royal flush and you keep ignoring my ten of hearts"), or desperate ad hominem attacks  ("You're an idiot").

You are hardly a good judge of reasonableness, and certainly not of graciousness.

I assume that everyone is aware that the research that "proved" Monsanto GMO corn dosed with Monsanto Roundup weed killer has been widely criticised as being flawed at every stage of the experiment, in the data analysis and in the published conclusion by independent scientists conducting a peer review on the small amount of published data from the study (ie not all the data has been made available, which is suspicious in itself). While many (including Gilles-Eric Séralini who conducted the study) see this as a dirty-tricks campaign to discredit the research, the criticisms do appear to be valid and difficult to refute.

The T wrote: I was thinking of another area where companies abuse people and they actually get an advantage of lack of any regulation. Now that I work in a for-profit but legitimate university, I have found more about this unique US phenomenon (I guess) known as "diploma mills". Basically, big corporations create "schools" or academies that are perfectly LEGAL but that issue totally useless degrees. They might actually teach something or they can issue a degree for a fee, period, without classes at all. Since these places are not accredited (accreditation is mostly done by PRIVATE entities anyway) because they don't meet standards, once students pay their money and are fooled by deceiving practices, they get useless diplomas which are rejected by every reputable school or college and have paid large amounts of money for them. These deceiving practices include creating bogus accreditation institutions that are perfectly legal and posting them in their websites so prospective students that sadly don't know better get fooled by these false-yet-legal credentials. This is abuse of companies who won't self-regulate. They are not regulated now, and they are acting like that to get money out of mostly poorer people.   These type of practices ensure to me that the "companies will never sell or do something harmful because they will lose market share" is sadly unreal. A 100% free market would thrive with these. I can't support a 100% unregulated market. I just can't.

I wholeheartedly believe corporations will do underhanded things and deceive and screw people to produce a profit.  They will attempt to do this with or without legislators- just as individuals will do underhanded things and deceive and screw people with or without laws.

But legislators are in the pockets of the companies, not the people who elected them.  Big businesses don't spend money on lobbyists for nothing.  And as with advertising, they spend plenty of money to create a narrative for the lawmakers to sell to the voters- and in what is effectively a two party system, that works very well.

That is ultimately why, ladies and gentlemen, a big government will never ever serve the voters- even if it pretends to do just that.